Hi I’m an artist and who the fuck are you?
Ngaio Blackwood here from Napier, New Zealand. I’m an artist and website designer.
It’s hard writing about yourself. I’ve been thinking for a while about how I can create content in my voice as an artist that doesn’t destroy me on the inside and something I will actually create plus be consistent. I haven’t figured out the answer but I used to write a blog on blogger. Remember blogger? yeah, I do. I enjoyed it when I wasn’t thinking about ‘creating content’. I didn’t overthink it or worry about getting my graphics right to share on Pinterest or post to Instagram. Back then Instagram wasn’t even a thing, smartphones were not yet smart.
I’ve been listening to a podcast called ‘Fail like an Artist’ and for the month of April we’re doing a hashtag challenge on Instagram, #Aprilforartists2023 and I joined in. However, I thought with an added twist I would first write here my responses to some of the prompts and then post an excerpt over on the gram* because to tell you the truth I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the Meta universe and while I participate I know I need to have other ways to market myself as an artist. So here we are.
*full disclaimer I’m doing this the other way around. wrote a post for Insta now I’m rewriting it for my blog.
Hello World, I’m an Artist, and who the fuck are you?
Every time I do an introduction post I think yeah but who are all these people reading this, can they please introduce themselves back so I don’t feel like I’m shouting into the void? So please comment below or send me a DM over on Insta. I want to meet you.
I’m an artist and Squarespace website designer based in Napier, New Zealand. A sunny spot in the southern hemisphere.
I grew up in Dunedin in the south island of NZ and I still have a fond spot in my heart for that beautiful cold city. I went to art school in Wellington and loved that too. I later moved to Auckland and didn’t love that place very much, the weather was great though and I managed to spend a year over on Waiheke which I treasure in my memories.
We decided to sell up with the house market boom in Auckland and move to Napier about 6/7 years ago for various reasons, mostly because Auckland traffic is an absolute time suck and we had a small child who needed a nana. So I’ve been in Hawke’s Bay for a while now but it’s taken me a long time to engage with the artistic community.
I’m an artist but I’ve not been full-time until this year. it’s hard-working other jobs but necessary of course. I’ll get another job if I have to but right now I’m supporting myself with my Squarespace Website design work and my supportive partner in crime. So hopefully I can finally finish a collection of paintings. I’m a mixed-media artist working across a few different mediums. I work in textiles, painting, both watercolour and oil and make some jewellery from tatting and beads.
I’ve written the draft of a book. potentially titled. “Hi, I’m an artist, and who the fuck are you?” Will I ever publish it? Well, that’s a mystery. I hope I do.
My current body of work is looking at how important having alone time is to me and on the flip side of that exploring how much I don’t understand people and feel socially awkward 90% of the time. I do feel like people don’t understand me and I kinda don’t care anymore. My work is visually taking on the shape of an island, a mass clumped together with a definite edge. Even though if you think about islands they’re not floating entities there is a connection to the surrounding areas like a rhizome the roots go down and connect somewhere else. At art school I was looking at the prison structure of the panopticon and how it is similar to the way women and the wider society police themselves through the feeling that other people are watching. I think that research is still relevant to where my work is today and I’m looking forward to discovering how it fits in.
Right while the introduction is pretty much over as I’ve set myself a time limit for writing this. How did I do? confused you further yeah sorry about that. Ask me some questions below and I’m happy to answer.
Introduce yourself below :)